"
Her Ladyship needs no advice
How time and money should be spent,
And can't pursue at any price
The plan that Alfred T. has sent.
She does not in the least object
To let the "foolish yeoman" go,
But wishes--let him recollect--
That he should move to Jericho.
THE WOODCRAFT OF JONSON
[Sidenote: _Ben Johnson_]
Nothing is a courtesy unless it be meant us; and that friendly and
lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers, that they carry our boats; or
winds, that they be favouring and fill our sails; or meats, that they be
nourishing; for these are what they are necessarily. Horses carry us,
trees shade us, but they know it not. It is true, some men may receive a
courtesy and not know it; but never any man received it from him that
knew it not. Many men have been cured of diseases by accident; but they
were not remedies. I myself have known one helped of an ague by falling
into a water; another whipped out of a fever; but no man would ever use
these for medicines. It is the mind, and not the event, that
distinguisheth the courtesy from wrong. My adversary may offend the
judge with his pride and impertinences, and I win my cause; but he meant
it not to me as a courtesy. I 'scaped pirates by being ship-wracked; was
the wrack a benefit therefore? No; the doing of courtesies aright is the
mixing of the respects for his own sake and for mine.
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